First, I would like to apologize for not posting last week. School has been hectic this term to say the least, and the maintenance of this is of a slightly lower priority than graduating from college. Again, sorry. I will try to be more diligent.
Second, I would like to know what you all think of this new format. I think it's a little too long-form, but it will work a little differently when I haven't finished a game before I even start thinking about my reviews. Therefore, I will give it another month before I revise the idea, but I would like to hear what you all have to say.
Ok, so final thoughts on Mass Effect 3. I have to say that I stand by my previous assertions. I think that Bioware has created a fantastic series of games because of their focus on engrossing gameplay and a deep, fascinating universe to explore. They create characters that players can relate to, even if they are a bit two-dimensional. As for Mass Effect 3 itself, all of the above is true. However, they wrote a terrible ending for a game. They tried to make it artistic with an open-ending, and failed miserably. It's a weird, aggravating exercise that they may not be able to fix, but that is for critics like me to complain about and not necessarily for Bioware to fix. There were also issues with DLC that are too complex to really get in to here. I will just say that I don't like DLC and I wish it would go away, but they make too much money off of it for that to happen. Besides those two (kind of big) issues, it's another great entry in a great series of games.
One thing that I forgot to talk about in my review of the story of the game was a little boy. While escaping from Earth, Shepard tries to save a little boy who is hiding in an air-vent. No matter what the player chooses, the boy runs away. Later, he blows the hell up in a ship that is fleeing. Throughout the game, there are dream sequences that show the boy running through the woods. The player then controls Shepard as he/she chases the boy through a grey grove filled with Reaper noises and lazers. Bioware was trying to show Shepard's inner turmoil with this ghost-boy, but its really just a transparent ploy to emotionally involve the player that fails miserably for a couple of reasons. For one, you see the boy for about two seconds before he is blown to smithereens. Call me heartless, but I don't care about a character I see for two seconds no matter how old they are. We have no idea who this kid is other than the fact that he's a kid. Another reason is that he's a damn stupid kid. Everyone knows who Commander Shepard is on Earth, and any child with brains should realize that he/she is going to give you the best chance of survival by far. So now we've got a dumb kid we've barely met haunting Shepard's dreams and giving us no emotional response, so Bioware makes it essentially the same dream every time to make it repetitive and boring as well as ineffective. This is a place where the narrative of Bioware as master storytellers kind of falls apart. Of course, all of this is moot if the Indoctrination Theory is true, but at face value the child is pointless.
All right, I'm finally done with Mass Effect 3. Feel free to tell me what you think in the comments. I'm moving on.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Mass Effect 3: The Ending
I was going to write a spoiler-laden article here about the various problems with the ending of Mass Effect 3. It was going to be sprawling and deep and it was going to blow all of your goddamn minds. Then, I did a Google search for 'Mass Effect 3 Endings' and realized that this is already old news. I don't care anymore. There's no right answer in this and we have to live with what Bioware gave us. For the sake of furthering the art of gaming, as I am obviously its vanguard, I will say that the ending is way too confusing. If the Indoctrination Theory is true (viewable here, but beware of spoilers and overproduction,) then Bioware should have made it more explicit and expanded. I like open endings, but only when they are done well and have more than three seconds of footage to hint and what's coming next.
I'll post links at the bottom so that you guys can read various takes on the ending, but I'm still going to put my two cents in here really fast. Video games are a very new art form with very new rules. Developers feel they own a game because they made it and gamers feel they own a game because of how invested they are in the story; they feel they are in that story. This is even more true in an RPG, and doubly super infinity true when an RPG is as well-crafted and beloved as Mass Effect. I think gamers went too far especially the one who filed a complaint with the FTC, but at the same time Bioware really dropped the ball. Anyway, I'll just give you the links and let you decide for yourself, although I will give commentary with each link.
Just as a recap:
1) The Mass Effect 3 ending is terrible because it makes no sense, ignores most players decisions and is overall confusing, melodramatic, and awful.
2) However, if video games are art, then we must respect the authors and their vision. We can argue and whine about how bad it is, but changing it would arguably destroy it as a work of art.
3) You're damned if you do and damned if you don't, Bioware. Think next time, and make sure that the new ending you're making works. I'm sick of this and don't really want to talk about it anymore. See you guys next week.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Mass Effect 3: The Story
This post will almost certainly contain spoilers.
Bioware, above all other game developers, are heralded for their narratives. They have an undeniable knack for telling tales that can capture the imaginations of their fans. Between Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age, and the most important series for this week Mass Effect, they've built a reputation as well as become a sort of posterboy for the potential that video games have as vehicles for narratives. Why? What makes them so different from the rest of the competition? Mass Effect 3 is the perfect opportunity to explore what Bioware does well, and what they do poorly in terms of story. It also gives us the chance to ask what it is that makes video games so compelling to the people who play them.
Before I get into the specifics, I suppose I should give a very brief overview of what happens in the game. The Reapers have finally nutted-up and decided to start wiping out organic life in the galaxy. They start with Earth, and Shepard is forced to leave in order to gather an army and defeat the synthetic bastards. That's basically it. You get two new squadmates, although only one is actually a new character. His name is James and he's one of the worst characters I've ever encountered in the Mass Effect universe. He's too cliche and too voiced-by-Freddie-Prince-Jr. for me to like him. Also, I'm pretty sure he takes steroids. It's terrifying. The story is still set up in that fairly open style in which you can play the missions in almost any order that you want, with the exception of one mission that makes it impossible to finish a bunch of others that I didn't know about until I did it and lost about five hours of game time which was just dandy. I spent about forty hours playing it, although I've heard of people somehow putting upwards of ninety hours in. I don't know how that's possible, but there you have it.
The best way to sum up what is great about Bioware's ability to spin a story is an anecdote. I was playing Mass Effect 3 and was very depressed about something big that had just happened (I know that I warned about spoilers, but I just can't say what that thing is.) As the cut-scene played and particles fell from the sky around the characters, the music from the title screen of the first Mass Effect started to play. It's a beautiful score; sort of techno, but the kind of awe-inspiring techno that shares more with the opening harmonics in the "Star Trek" theme song than Deadmau5. As I sat there watching this cut-scene, I started to get a little choked-up. This generally doesn't happen with me in a video game, no matter how good the game. I loved Bioshock, but I didn't feel a lump in the back of my throat during the ending cut-scene. This scene did that. I was amazed and couldn't stop thinking about why I'd had that reaction. I've decided that the reason for this emotional response is Bioware's uncanny ability to make the gamer feel attachment, not only to characters but to entire universes. A few people have joked derisively about the amount of dialogue in Bioware games, but that dialogue forces the gamer to connect to the game in a way that few others do. Even Skyrim, which is one of the conceived games in one of the best conceived universes in gaming history, couldn't come close to the emotional resonance of these games because of the amount of freedom that players have to not chat with NPC's. Everything is too expansive and too spread out to have any kind of emotion at all. I remember beating Skyrim and feeling next to nothing, partially because I still had a bunch more missions and partially because it just kind of happened. Bioware forces to player to talk to the people in their universe, and by way of their dialogue wheel the player is actually talking to those NPC's (albeit through pre-programmed responses.) The NPC's then talk about their views, their lives, and the qualities of their people, expanding the universe and forcing the player to pick a side. That is the strength of Bioware's storytelling; they force you to engage in the conversation and, in the process, find out about this vast universe their engineers have created. It's a mix of interactivity and depth that few have quite gotten right.
I was going to write here about what Bioware does wrong in their storytelling. For instance, their characters can be extremely wooden. The lines they deliver sound unnatural and awkward. Their voice actors aren't always the best and sound like they're reading the ingredients on a cereal box instead of worrying about the end of the universe. This is especially true of the male Shepard, who is excruciatingly hard to listen to sometimes. The structure of their stories is very loose and unconnected sometimes. Then I realized that I really didn't care. I think they need to fix the dialogue and hire better voice actors, sure, but the stories they tell are still intense and interesting. We still connect to these characters even if they are occasionally written with the subtlety of a fat ninja. Again, it has to be that mix of interactivity and deep personal histories that connects us to these characters. Let's look at an example: why do fans love Liara besides her propensity for lesbian sex scenes? Well, of course there is manipulation. Bioware made her smart and adorably awkward like a blue Zoe Deschanel.
She's essentially the girl-next-door type. However, though she is a good person, she also has a mother who almost helps destroy organic life. She becomes the Shadowbroker as well, which adds some danger and depth to her character. There is also all that you learn about her people, and eventually about her father. She becomes interesting because she doesn't necessarily fit into any traditional archetypes. She's not the whore or the mother, and while she is likable and essentially a good person, she is no madonna. She can be a cold-blooded killer, in fact. She is a really good blend of prototypical and atypical. We need that archetypal foundation of the good, approachable girl so that we can relate to her and become invested in all of the exposition/backstory she will have to deliver, but we also need that edge to keep an interest. In the grand scheme of things, it's actually quite skillfully done. However, again, on a line-by-line basis, the quality of the writing suffers. This leads to something interesting I've noticed about narrative in video games; the detailed skill of the writing doesn't matter.
Bioware, above all other game developers, are heralded for their narratives. They have an undeniable knack for telling tales that can capture the imaginations of their fans. Between Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age, and the most important series for this week Mass Effect, they've built a reputation as well as become a sort of posterboy for the potential that video games have as vehicles for narratives. Why? What makes them so different from the rest of the competition? Mass Effect 3 is the perfect opportunity to explore what Bioware does well, and what they do poorly in terms of story. It also gives us the chance to ask what it is that makes video games so compelling to the people who play them.
Before I get into the specifics, I suppose I should give a very brief overview of what happens in the game. The Reapers have finally nutted-up and decided to start wiping out organic life in the galaxy. They start with Earth, and Shepard is forced to leave in order to gather an army and defeat the synthetic bastards. That's basically it. You get two new squadmates, although only one is actually a new character. His name is James and he's one of the worst characters I've ever encountered in the Mass Effect universe. He's too cliche and too voiced-by-Freddie-Prince-Jr. for me to like him. Also, I'm pretty sure he takes steroids. It's terrifying. The story is still set up in that fairly open style in which you can play the missions in almost any order that you want, with the exception of one mission that makes it impossible to finish a bunch of others that I didn't know about until I did it and lost about five hours of game time which was just dandy. I spent about forty hours playing it, although I've heard of people somehow putting upwards of ninety hours in. I don't know how that's possible, but there you have it.
The best way to sum up what is great about Bioware's ability to spin a story is an anecdote. I was playing Mass Effect 3 and was very depressed about something big that had just happened (I know that I warned about spoilers, but I just can't say what that thing is.) As the cut-scene played and particles fell from the sky around the characters, the music from the title screen of the first Mass Effect started to play. It's a beautiful score; sort of techno, but the kind of awe-inspiring techno that shares more with the opening harmonics in the "Star Trek" theme song than Deadmau5. As I sat there watching this cut-scene, I started to get a little choked-up. This generally doesn't happen with me in a video game, no matter how good the game. I loved Bioshock, but I didn't feel a lump in the back of my throat during the ending cut-scene. This scene did that. I was amazed and couldn't stop thinking about why I'd had that reaction. I've decided that the reason for this emotional response is Bioware's uncanny ability to make the gamer feel attachment, not only to characters but to entire universes. A few people have joked derisively about the amount of dialogue in Bioware games, but that dialogue forces the gamer to connect to the game in a way that few others do. Even Skyrim, which is one of the conceived games in one of the best conceived universes in gaming history, couldn't come close to the emotional resonance of these games because of the amount of freedom that players have to not chat with NPC's. Everything is too expansive and too spread out to have any kind of emotion at all. I remember beating Skyrim and feeling next to nothing, partially because I still had a bunch more missions and partially because it just kind of happened. Bioware forces to player to talk to the people in their universe, and by way of their dialogue wheel the player is actually talking to those NPC's (albeit through pre-programmed responses.) The NPC's then talk about their views, their lives, and the qualities of their people, expanding the universe and forcing the player to pick a side. That is the strength of Bioware's storytelling; they force you to engage in the conversation and, in the process, find out about this vast universe their engineers have created. It's a mix of interactivity and depth that few have quite gotten right.
I was going to write here about what Bioware does wrong in their storytelling. For instance, their characters can be extremely wooden. The lines they deliver sound unnatural and awkward. Their voice actors aren't always the best and sound like they're reading the ingredients on a cereal box instead of worrying about the end of the universe. This is especially true of the male Shepard, who is excruciatingly hard to listen to sometimes. The structure of their stories is very loose and unconnected sometimes. Then I realized that I really didn't care. I think they need to fix the dialogue and hire better voice actors, sure, but the stories they tell are still intense and interesting. We still connect to these characters even if they are occasionally written with the subtlety of a fat ninja. Again, it has to be that mix of interactivity and deep personal histories that connects us to these characters. Let's look at an example: why do fans love Liara besides her propensity for lesbian sex scenes? Well, of course there is manipulation. Bioware made her smart and adorably awkward like a blue Zoe Deschanel.
 |
| The Same Person |
In terms of narrative, video games share just as much with books as they do with film. Yes, they are visually oriented, but they are also long-form and take anywhere from six hours to infinity to finish. Therefore, I would like to do something a little odd and compare Mass Effect 3 to the Harry Potter series. How closely have you read those books? If you've taken any time to actually read them, it becomes apparent that they aren't particularly well-written. JK Rowling's dialogue is often very unwieldy, the structures of the stories can be nearly non-existent and calling some of the characters flat is an understatement. However, they are some of the best-selling and most-beloved books of all-time. I love them. The reasons for this is the same reason that Bioware and other game developers can succeed in telling a great story without necessarily having the best writing. The number one most important thing is building a universe that the characters inhabit. The world Harry and his friends live in is, for lack of a better term, magical. There's fantastic creatures, imaginative inventions, and whimsical/nightmareish adventure around every corner. It's a fully realized realm that people would love to explore. The same is true of Mass Effect, Dragon Age or The Elder Scrolls if we're going to leave Bioware canon. Hell, Star Wars and "Star Trek" could be included in here as well as a bevy of other sci-fi and fantasy titles. Beyond a world, they also have characters that are enjoyable, if not always deep. Who doesn't love Aberforth, even if he probably had sex with a goat? The gruffer, disillusioned Dumbledore is interesting not because he's such an interesting character, but because of how he fits into the mythos and how differently he acts from Albus Dumbledore, the beloved and complex character we miss throughout the seventh book. A good equivalent to Aberforth in Mass Effect 3 would be the Asari barmaid in the Presidium Commons. Asari are wise and generally aloof, but this lady is gruff and harshly-spoken. Again, this is using the player's knowledge of this universe they set up to make characters engaging and entertaining. Then, of course, there's the length. Both Mass Effect and any Harry Potter book are too long to remember the specifics of each conversation. If you say that Ron said something, I can assume it was probably something incredibly stupid and possibly funny. If you say Garrus said something, I can assume it was badass. I couldn't tell you what either of them actually said, though, which allows the player to fill in the blanks themselves. I choose to believe these characters were well-written because I liked them and can't remember specific reasons to believe anything else.
So what am I trying to say in this vast, tangled weave of text? The writers at Bioware aren't William Shakespeare. They aren't even Christopher Nolan. They use a lot of cliches and manipulation, their dialogue is awkward, and a lot of stuff feels disconnected or doesn't really make sense. However, they are pioneers. They are attempting to write deep storylines and build interesting characters in a medium that doesn't always pride itself on its storytelling abilities. Writing in video games is a deep, unmapped lake in the middle of nowhere and Bioware is just dipping a toe. They are laying groundwork for what will eventually be a medium that could rival all others before it in terms of emotional power and narrative complexity. You have to applaud them for that.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Mass Effect 3: General Feelings
Well, after a very long break I am back. I know you've all missed me terribly, as I am one of the few shining lights in your life. You don't have to say it, I just know. To my Russian readers, dosvedanya or something. I'm sorry, I don't speak your language. Anyway, I've decided to break up my reviews into four week parts so that I can put more thought into them and maybe actually finish games before I review them, just like a big boy. Generally the first week will be first impressions, the second and third will be something interesting I've noticed about the game, and the fourth week will either be a reworking of my original impressions based on the ending or something else I thought was interesting if my first impressions were totally right. If there are five Sundays in a month, then I just get an extra week to play the new game. I think this will allow for a little more analysis and depth. Also, again, the finishing the game thing. That's been bugging me since I started writing this blog. This month will be a little different, however, as I have already finished the game. I was sick almost all of Spring Break so I had nothing better to do. Therefore, I have all of my impressions of the game and will have to be crafty with the rest of my articles. Also, I'm now posting this on a Monday so I've already screwed up the format. Anyway, I hope this works better than that hellish weekly format.
Now that old business is closed, we shall move on to new business: Mass Effect 3. As all of you know, I am a huge fan of the Mass Effect series. Bioware has done a fantastic job of building a deep universe, a compelling story, and a rabid fan-base. Because of the quality of the previous games in the series, hype for Mass Effect 3 has been fevered. Ads were ubiquitous on TV and the Internet in the months leading up to its release. Xbox Live even had a countdown on the dashboard. However, the game has also been mired in controversies surrounding its ending and DLC. I'll talk about the endings and controversy in different, spoiler-laden part of the review. Right now, I want to talk about the more general gameplay aspects of Mass Effect 3. Does the game work as a game?
In terms of actual game-play, everything is very much like Mass Effect 2. The style is more action-RPG than the first one, with fast-paced, roll-and-shoot game play not totally unlike Gears of War. The characters still have powers to upgrade, though now there is a branching tree-esque system in place where the gamer picks between two different modifications to their skills once they upgrade it past level three. There are all kinds of cool weapons that are actually impressively distinct in terms of how they fire and how much damage they can do. The vehicle sections are still gone, the elevators load quickly, and they've added decapitation effects when you shoot enemies in the head. In terms of bare-bones gameplay, nothing has changed. The dialogue is also handled similarly using Bioware's patent-pending talk-o-gram dialogue wheel. The paragon/renegade quick-time actions are also still in place, though now they can have actual influence on the game. Really, what you can take from the game play is that Shepard is still a badass space warrior who will stop at nothing to see an end to the Reapers.
There are two gameplay concepts introduced into Mass Effect 3 that are different and really modify the game feels; the war assets and the multiplayer. War assets are a concept that isn't completely alien to the Mass Effect franchise. The essentially act like the upgrades to the ship from Mass Effect 2 in that you need to take part in missions in order to acquire resources to get the best ending possible for your playthrough. It's a fairly simple concept, but one that is even more effective in this game. Collecting war assets feels so much grander and more important than modifying an engine. It's easier to imagine amassing hordes of Elcor to help in your war effort than imaging the difference between Thanix cannons and whatever second-rate crap Cerberus installed on your ship in the first place. It's epic, for lack of a better word, and makes you want to gather every race in the galaxy to help save Earth. The multiplayer is much less successful. If you don't already know, the multiplayer in Mass Effect 3 is tied to the single-player via a galaxy readiness system. Galactic readiness is a handicap on your war assets that cuts off half of the effective strength of those armies from the beginning. For instance, if your war assets total at five thousand and your galactic readiness is at 50%, then your effective strength is only around two-thousand five-hundred, which will probably give you an ending that results in everyone dying and show naked pictures of old Marlon Brando. In order to raise your galactic readiness, you either need to play the multiplayer or apps you can get on your phone or Ipad. Its extremely annoying, especially since the free app is really only useful as a way to boost your galactic readiness in multiplayer. The multiplayer itself is essentially horde mode, where you kill wave after wave of increasingly difficult enemies. You can unlock different classes, races, and other schwag as you gain levels. There seems to be one map for every system in the game's universe, so that's about six maps. Its not awful, its just really boring and made to feel like a chore you have to complete to complete your single-player campaign. It's horribly unnecessary.
Besides the very existence of multiplayer, the only other problem with the game-play is that the controls can be a bit awkward on occasion, especially while using cover. Shepard has a tendency to roll when he/she should really duck or randomly stand up completely out of cover for no discernible reason. It seems like a little thing, but it can get you killed pretty easily. Other than that, all I can say is that its Mass Effect. They want you to feel powerful without being a god like just about every other game out there, and they execute very well. The gun play is tight, the dialogue system is still the best around, and the quick-time events are actually enjoyable which is the exception when it comes to quick-time events.
Next week, I'll talk narrative in this game and the rest of the Mass Effect series. I don't know if I'll talk about endings yet. I might make an article that's all about controversies. We'll see.
Now that old business is closed, we shall move on to new business: Mass Effect 3. As all of you know, I am a huge fan of the Mass Effect series. Bioware has done a fantastic job of building a deep universe, a compelling story, and a rabid fan-base. Because of the quality of the previous games in the series, hype for Mass Effect 3 has been fevered. Ads were ubiquitous on TV and the Internet in the months leading up to its release. Xbox Live even had a countdown on the dashboard. However, the game has also been mired in controversies surrounding its ending and DLC. I'll talk about the endings and controversy in different, spoiler-laden part of the review. Right now, I want to talk about the more general gameplay aspects of Mass Effect 3. Does the game work as a game?
In terms of actual game-play, everything is very much like Mass Effect 2. The style is more action-RPG than the first one, with fast-paced, roll-and-shoot game play not totally unlike Gears of War. The characters still have powers to upgrade, though now there is a branching tree-esque system in place where the gamer picks between two different modifications to their skills once they upgrade it past level three. There are all kinds of cool weapons that are actually impressively distinct in terms of how they fire and how much damage they can do. The vehicle sections are still gone, the elevators load quickly, and they've added decapitation effects when you shoot enemies in the head. In terms of bare-bones gameplay, nothing has changed. The dialogue is also handled similarly using Bioware's patent-pending talk-o-gram dialogue wheel. The paragon/renegade quick-time actions are also still in place, though now they can have actual influence on the game. Really, what you can take from the game play is that Shepard is still a badass space warrior who will stop at nothing to see an end to the Reapers.
There are two gameplay concepts introduced into Mass Effect 3 that are different and really modify the game feels; the war assets and the multiplayer. War assets are a concept that isn't completely alien to the Mass Effect franchise. The essentially act like the upgrades to the ship from Mass Effect 2 in that you need to take part in missions in order to acquire resources to get the best ending possible for your playthrough. It's a fairly simple concept, but one that is even more effective in this game. Collecting war assets feels so much grander and more important than modifying an engine. It's easier to imagine amassing hordes of Elcor to help in your war effort than imaging the difference between Thanix cannons and whatever second-rate crap Cerberus installed on your ship in the first place. It's epic, for lack of a better word, and makes you want to gather every race in the galaxy to help save Earth. The multiplayer is much less successful. If you don't already know, the multiplayer in Mass Effect 3 is tied to the single-player via a galaxy readiness system. Galactic readiness is a handicap on your war assets that cuts off half of the effective strength of those armies from the beginning. For instance, if your war assets total at five thousand and your galactic readiness is at 50%, then your effective strength is only around two-thousand five-hundred, which will probably give you an ending that results in everyone dying and show naked pictures of old Marlon Brando. In order to raise your galactic readiness, you either need to play the multiplayer or apps you can get on your phone or Ipad. Its extremely annoying, especially since the free app is really only useful as a way to boost your galactic readiness in multiplayer. The multiplayer itself is essentially horde mode, where you kill wave after wave of increasingly difficult enemies. You can unlock different classes, races, and other schwag as you gain levels. There seems to be one map for every system in the game's universe, so that's about six maps. Its not awful, its just really boring and made to feel like a chore you have to complete to complete your single-player campaign. It's horribly unnecessary.
Besides the very existence of multiplayer, the only other problem with the game-play is that the controls can be a bit awkward on occasion, especially while using cover. Shepard has a tendency to roll when he/she should really duck or randomly stand up completely out of cover for no discernible reason. It seems like a little thing, but it can get you killed pretty easily. Other than that, all I can say is that its Mass Effect. They want you to feel powerful without being a god like just about every other game out there, and they execute very well. The gun play is tight, the dialogue system is still the best around, and the quick-time events are actually enjoyable which is the exception when it comes to quick-time events.
Next week, I'll talk narrative in this game and the rest of the Mass Effect series. I don't know if I'll talk about endings yet. I might make an article that's all about controversies. We'll see.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)